The Mellophone Intonation Smackdown

I am on episode 40 of The Mellocast, the weekly podcast on all things mellophone. This episode is one of their best, on the topic of intonation and the mellophone. As in the old joke,

Q: How do you play a mellophone in tune?
A: You can’t!

This is a great podcast to check out if you are interested in intonation on any type of horn but in particular on mellophone. It is not impossible to play one in tune of course but the bottom line we all brought up on the episode is that while in general mellophone intonation is lousy compared to any other brass instrument, and it is a design issue that we have to believe could in fact be fixed.

How every maker that produces mellophones can make student model trumpets and Euphoniums that play pretty well in tune out of the box and mellophones that don’t nearly play in tune is beyond me. It is almost as though manufacturers long ago figured out that people will actually buy anything that looks like a mellophone if it is priced right. This is pretty much reason number one why horn players generally speaking really don’t like mellophones–even the best mellophones have intonation that is worse than the average student model instrument of any other brass instrument.

Intonation of mid-range instruments like the horn is critical to ensemble intonation. The example I give often is as a horn player in an orchestra you want to focus your intonation on the woodwinds. When you have the woodwinds and horns together you have a large body of sound in the middle of the orchestra that then becomes a focus for good intonation for the entire ensemble. And the horn is the key, middle voice, we play with the high instruments and low instruments. If it all lines up with the horns, it is all good! Take the role of leader, it works.

This is where I hope DCI people are paying attention–if you want better intonation in your horn line the mellophone is in fact the key element. As long as the mellophone section is relegated to playing instruments/mouthpieces of inferior quality there is no hope of great intonation, at least without some struggle on the part of your mello section.

My hope is that with the influx of DCI interest in the mellophone that makers will actually get down to it and into some serious development toward making new mellophones and mouthpieces that play well right out of the box. It would really help out a lot of high school and college level horn players.